It’s exciting to be expecting at the same time as a close family member: you can dream about your kids growing up together, playing together, and forming a tight bond, but what if you both have your eyes on the same baby name?
Baby name politics can often be difficult to navigate, especially when it comes to close relatives. Redditor u/EmuNaive4943, a 26-year-old woman, pregnant with her first baby, recently took to the site’s popular subreddit, “Am I The Assh*le” (colloquially called AITA) to ask about a delicate subject that’s recently come up with her eldest sister.
There aren’t too many surprises when it comes to u/EmuNaive4943’s pregnancy. She knows she’s having a boy, she already has a C-section scheduled for medical reasons, so she knows when his birthday will be, and she knows what they’re going to call him when he arrives.
“We chose to name him after my husband’s dad who died when he was a baby,” she explains. “This was something very important to him and therefore was important to me. This was decided early in my pregnancy but didn’t get announced until my baby shower some weeks ago. We only let people know then because some wanted to personalize their gifts to us or add additional gifts with the name.”
Her eldest sister is 10 years older and is also due with her first, conceived after more than a decade of infertility. At that time, u/EmuNaive4943’s eldest sister and middle sister, who has five children, grew distant despite having been very close previously.
“Watching our middle sister have kids so easily really hurt her and I know their relationship struggled because my middle sister “joked” that she would carry a baby for my oldest sister and her husband and she didn’t say it as a joke at first,” she explains.
But the oldest and youngest sisters’ simultaneous pregnancies offered an opportunity for closeness that hadn’t existed prior, due to their large age gap. “She had told me she had a boy name picked out … [and] found out they were having a boy a few days before my shower. She decided to wait to tell me the name until after because she didn’t want to take the focus off me. But then my son’s name was announced… and it was the same name as the one they had chosen.
“She asked me afterward if we could find another name. She said she really wants her son to have his own special name and they’ve had this name chosen for 10 years. I told her this is my late FIL’s name and means so much to my husband. She told me she really doesn’t want the cousins sharing a name. I said it could be worse. She left in tears and she went quiet for a while. But after a couple of weeks she asked me again to please consider another name. I let my husband know what was going on and we worked out something to say together… and then I communicated that we would not change the name. When she pushed I pointed out my son would be born first so it wasn’t me stealing the name. She made it very clear how hurt she is and how she feels like both me and our middle sister fail to understand all she’s been through and lack compassion for her.”
The OP says she feels “awful,” but commenters were overwhelmingly on her side, declaring her “Not The Assh*le” or NTA.
“Don’t feel awful, you’ve done nothing wrong,” reads one comment. “There is NO GOOD REASON cousins cannot have the same name. Tell her this subject is no longer up for discussion and if she still also wants to use the name then you’re fine with it. I also think it’s WONDERFUL that you are naming your boy after your FIL who passed. NTA.”
“Definitely NTA,” says another. “I feel like your sister is coming at this from a place of past pain and hurt, which is understandable, but those are feelings she needs to work out with a therapist, not expect everyone else to cater to them.”
Baby names are truly so personal, so it makes sense that emotions can run high where they’re concerned. But it’s important to remember that no one owns a name, even one you really love.
Disclaimer: This story has not been edited by us and is published as shown on Scary Mommy.
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